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In order to develop a harmonised and efficient IT system, such as a
database, it is important to be familiar with the underlying concept
model (concept systems) for the relevant domain which the IT system
should be designed to accommodate, as this forms the necessary firm
foundation for designing the conceptual data model. Although there is
no one-to-one correlation between concept and characteristic features
in the concept model and classes and attributes in the conceptual data
model, there are many similarities between concept modelling and
conceptual data modelling, and by closely examining the relationship
between the two models, we have strived to construct an algorithm for
creating conceptual data models in Unified Modelling Language
(UML) on the basis of concept models that adhere to the traditional
principles and methods of terminology work.

Communication makes a difference. The manner in which we communicate creates the phenomena we communicate about. It can seem obvious, but we are nevertheless seldom aware of the complexity this constructivist assumption implies. Through an analysis of a new salary system in the public sector of Denmark (called New Wage), this paper theorizes this complexity in terms of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. It identifies four wholly different ‘codes’ of communication: legal, economic, pedagogical and intimate. Each of them shapes the phenomena of ‘pay’, the construal of the employee and the form of management differently. In this chaos of codes the managerial challenge is to take a second order position in order to strategically manage the communication that manages management itself.
Key words: Management; personnel management; human-relations; pay-system; communication; system-theory; discursive epistemology

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From their beginning in the 1930s, critical theory and the Frankfurt school had their
focus on a critique of disturbed social relations in western society dominated by
totalitarian political regimes like Stalinism, Fascism, Nazism, and by capitalism as an
oppressive and destructive economic system and culture. Now, 80 years later, this
has all become history and thus it is time to leave the concept of critical theory behind
us, and instead bring the concept of critique to a broader theoretical framework like
hermeneutics. This allows the possibility of retaining the theoretical intentions of the
old Frankfurt school and at the same time there will be no boundaries by specific
dominant theoretical perspectives. In this paper, such a framework for a critical
hermeneutics is discussed on the basis of Weber’s, Gadamer’s, and Habermas’
theories on hermeneutics within the social sciences.

The thesis is an inquiry into how leadership is performed narratively in the cultural sector.
Chapter 1 draws the cultural sector as a narrative landscape, and the reader is invited on
a tour around this narrative landscape as seen through the eyes of some of the top guns in
the cultural sector. Seen from this vantage, leadership in the cultural sector seems to be
predominantly performed by relating narratives with reference to the metanarrative of the
Enlightenment. The inquiry, however, draws on Lyotard (1984) to argue that such
extralinguistic legitimization is in a crisis of legitimacy, wherefore the inquiry embarks on
a problematization of the dominant understanding of leadership in the cultural sector with
the activist aspiration of suggesting a postmoderning understanding of leadership in the
cultural sector being performatively legitimized. Chapter 2 argues in favor of a relational,
non-entitative understanding of narratives and it points to emplotment as a process of
finding the best fit. This relational understanding of narratives allows the project to inquire
into leadership performed narratively in all kinds of empirical settings, not confining itself
to formal leadership contexts. Chapter 3 offers a genealogic approach to what the project
has defined as the dominant narrative in the cultural sector, the narrative of art for art’s
sake (the AFAS narrative), which the project argues function as an implicit standard. This
includes notions of aesthetic autonomy such as suggested by Kant in 1790, artistic freedom
and art for its own sake such as claimed by artists in the Romantic era, and the arm’s
length principle as the ‘constitution of cultural policies’ in the post WW2 Western world.
Chapter 4 provides an overview of alternative voices which have challenged the dominant
narrative. These include post colonial studies, cultural entrepreneurial studies and
consumer behavior studies which in various ways propose alternative ways to lead and
support the cultural sector. Chapter 5 links the discussions in chapter 3 and chapter 4 to
leadership studies, notably to discussions of leader-centered orientations versus leading
relationally orientations. The chapter concludes by suggesting a new sensibility towards
understanding leadership and meditates on how this might be achieved, paying attentions
to the possibilities of overcoming the putative crisis of legitimacy the inquiry is placed in.
Chapter 6 relates a case-study of Malmoe City Library which endeavors into a difficult,
yet very promising process of reformulating what a library may become in a contemporary
context. This process challenges the dominant narrative and thus the current
understanding of what a library should be, and this deviation from the dominant narrative
challenges leadership. Chapter 7 assembles three different approaches to challenges the dominant narrative and to make new interpretive resources available to the understanding
of leadership in the cultural sector. First, givrum.nu, a social movement working with arts,
second, Mogens Holm, a leader in the cultural sector in a transition phase, and third,
Copenhagen Phil, a classical symphony orchestra striving to avoid becoming a parallel
society phenomenon. These case studies are conducted as written interviews with the
cases, in an attempted un-edited form to also introduce relational processes informed by a
power with relation to my own research project. Chapter 8 reflects on the case-studies in
chapter 6 and chapter 7 in light of the two approaches to leadership discussed in chapter 5.
It does so by linking my study to relational leadership theory in order to see how this
theoretical field might inform my inquiry and how my inquiry might inform this field. It
equally offers five possible reconstructions of the cases before concluding the research
project by summing up contributions to the empirical field and the research fields, as well
as by pointing to areas which could be further developed in future research.
In line with the aspirations of the relational constructionist framework of the project, the
inquiry does not offer a conclusion. Instead it encourages further reconstructions, thus
submitting itself to the performative legitimization it argues in favor of.

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The diversity domain seems currently in a struggle, having critical debates about the future
direction of diversity studies as well as diversity programs and actions. It seems to have
neglected theoretical reflections on notions of ‘diversity,’ ‘difference,’ or the ‘other.’ The
purpose of this paper is to think theoretically about diversity, arguing that it is the thinking
itself that has to become different and that a different thinking will make a difference in
addressing policies and actions. The main point we try to make is that diversity is not a
matter of constructing identities but of a moving alterity.
We will depart from the current debates in diversity management, in which we identify
mainly four issues: a narrow or broad definition of diversity, a stable or dynamic conception
of identity, the role of power, and the importance of the socio-historical context. With the
discussion of these four issues, we will try to indicate the implicit ‘theoretical’ choices
prioritizing the concept of ‘identity’, turning the issues of diversity into a managing of
individuals and ‘their’ identities. Rather than pursuing the route of identity, we try to explore
another route, paving a possible way of conceiving the other from the position of the other
and not from fixed norms and possibilities. We therefor turn to the concept of ‘alterity.’
The aim of the paper is then to develop an alterity-thinking by connecting and relating to
the philosophical work of Deleuze and Guattari, and Serres; the writings of Collins on the
Black-feminist standpoint, and recent political studies on democracy. The qualifications that
we connect and associate to alterity, are: its relation to an ontology of becoming, its crossing
out of the identifiable into becoming anonymous, its dependence on safe, social-cultural
spaces, and on open, empty public spaces. To conclude, we reflect on the different ways in
which this alterity-thinking is related to the four critical issues of the diversity literature and
discuss its qualifications as possible conditions for what we might sum up as an ‘alterity
politics.’

The present maps study maps the decision-making behaviors of experienced raters in a well-established Communal Writing Assessment (CWA) context, tracing their behaviors all the way from the independent rating sessions, where the initial images and judgments are formed, to the communal rating sessions, where the final scores are assigned on the basis of collaboration between two rates. Results from think-aloud protocols, recorded discussions, retrespective reports and reported scores from 20 raters rating 15 ESL essays show that when moving from the independent ratings to the communal ratings, there is little, if any, increase in rater agreement levels and the raters' attention to the textual features corresponding to the official criteria become more evenly distributed. However, rather than consulting the scale descriptors directly in resolving insecurities about score assignment, the raters seemed to rely heavily on each others' expertise, thereby reducing the importance of the scale and emphasizing the value of the community of raters. In validating their scores in the communal rating discussions the raters appeared to be critically and equally engaged in the discussions, and through deliberating and refining their assessments the raters believed that CWA practices produce more accurate scores than in independent ratings and lead to professional development. These interpretations support a hermeneutic rather than a psychometric approach to establishing the validity of the present CWA practices.

This paper looks at the relationship between anthropology, fieldwork and what is referred to as ‘organizational ethnography’. It starts by distinguishing between fieldwork, which is a method of conducting qualitative research, initially in the discipline of anthropology, and ethnography, which is the writing up of that research. The paper makes use of the author’s fieldwork experiences in a Japanese advertising agency to illustrate a number of features that define fieldwork as a methodology. It argues that it is the shift from participant observation to observant participation that enables the fieldworker to move from front stage to back stage in the study of an organization, and thereby to gain information and knowledge that is otherwise available only to insiders. Fieldwork, Anthropology, Organizational Ethnography, Observant Participation

Nordea is the first major international bank planning to operate important host country activities in branches as the Second European banking directive envisions rather than as subsidiaries. Nordea is the result of mergers of roughly equal-size universal banks in four Nordic countries with the intention to reap economies of scale and scope by providing services in an integrated organization. Nordea has so far operated under a legal structure with subsidiaries in the host countries. When the new branch organization is implemented, EU directives specify that the home country is responsible for supervision, regulation as well as deposit insurance. Supervisors in all involved countries are challenged by this prospect and they are negotiating to obtain an acceptable division of responsibilities. We argue that the Nordea case offers an opportunity to implement the EU's vision and to develop institutional foundations for substantial market discipline in banking. In particular, distress resolution and insolvency procedures for banks must be made rule based and credible for host country authorities to accept home country control.

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Identity formation is probably one of the most discussed aspects of strategic positioning within anthropology, sociology and political science. In general notions of identity have been based on either an absolutist or primordial understanding of belonging or a constructionalist view in which social and political positioning in terms of identity formation are governed by a given societal context. This paper bases its understanding of identity formation on the latter approach. This means that depending of context individuals have several different although related identities to choose between when manoeuvring in a complex and dynamic social environment. Identity formation, achieved or ascribed, and its various forms of externalisation are thus negotiated and not absolute. The dynamic behind this notion of identity formation is individual agency strategically manipulating social, economic and political positioning in a given societal setup. To illustrate the complexities and in this case negative ramifications of social engineering the article focuses on inter-ethnic relations and industrial development in Penang, Malaysia.

Departing from my interest in finding key factors determining a developing
country firms’ export success, this research explores two fascinating topics: one is
the debate on whether a developing country’s producers should become involved
in marketing functions where a developed country’s firms already hold a strong
position, and the other is the very limited attention given in the export literature to
the role of relational capability in a firm’s export business....

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A semiotic outline of fundamental signs, significance-effects, knowledge profiling and their use in knowledge organization and branding

Thellefsen, Torkild Leo(Frederiksberg, 2009)

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Abstract:

I designate my work as a semeiotic of knowledge
organization in a somewhat wide meaning of the concept. A somewhat wide
meaning means that it is not restricted to LIS research in keywords or
representational theory of documents or thesauri construction etc. It builds
upon and is inspired by the semeiotic of Peirce. It understands development of signs as a process of knowledge organization. Here, the focus is on branding,
emotions and scientific knowledge.
Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to present the concepts: the
fundamental sign, the significance‐effect, semeiotic constructivism and the
knowledge profile, and to suggest some relations between them. The main
questions I pursue, and which this thesis hopefully will give answers to, are:
Is it possible to define and describe the above mentioned concepts,
which have their theoretical starting point in the semeiotic of Peirce? And is
it possible to outline a use of these concepts?

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The International Monetary Fund and Policy Reform Surveillance in Small Open Economies

Seabrooke, Leonard; Broome, André(København, 2006)

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Abstract:

The International Monetary Fund spends most of its time monitoring its member states' economic performance and advising on institutional change. While much of the literature sees the Fund as a policy enforcer in "emerging market" and "frontier" economies, little attention has been paid to exploring the Fund’s bilateral surveillance of its Western member states. This article proposes that "seeing like the IMF" provides a dynamic view of how the Fund frames its advice for institutional change. It does so through "associational templates" that do not blindly promote institutional convergence, but appeal for change on the basis of like-characteristics among economies. Many Western states, particularly small open economies, consider the Fund's advice as important not only for technical know-how, but because Fund assessments are significant to international and domestic political audiences. This article traces the Fund's advice on taxation and monetary reform to two coordinated market economies, Denmark and Sweden, and two liberal market economies, Australia and New Zealand from 1975 to 2004. It maps how the Fund advocated "policy revolutions" and "policy recombinations" during this period, advice that coincided with important institutional changes within these small open economies.

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The article is an empirical analysis of how a Scandinavian new economy firm was able to persuade a number of business journalists that it represented ‘the future’. It analyses how visitors to the firm were met with a specific and persuasive combination of rhetorical and material ressources. It suggests that the persuasive power of the firm was based on its ability to evoke and articulate a series of pointed contrasts between the attractive working life within the firm and the ordinary and problematic work life elsewhere. The article suggests that this strategy of drawing contrasts together differs from the mode of persuasion usually described by STS.
Keywords: Sociology of expectations, Sociology of futures, Sociology of anticipation, New Economy, dot-com, persuasion, power, actor-network theory, materialised contrast argument.